[Note: There were two films I intended to see this season and did not – Drive My Car and Memoria. The former just didn’t happen yet but will prior to the Academy Awards. The latter, I missed my chance.]
For me, this was a year defined by a single piece of cinema: Stephen Spielberg’s West Side Story. The gulf between this musical masterpiece and my second favorite film of the year was cavernous, as it was not only the best picture of the year, but the finest movie musical produced since Norman Jewison’s Fiddler on the Roof (1971).